The Neighbor (37 page)

“All right, Jason
Jones
.”

Jason caught the edge again, the implied threat. He fisted his hand at his side, refusing to say another word.

“You don’t like me much, do you, Jason?”

Again Jason didn’t answer. The judge, however, seemed to be talking mostly to himself. “What I can’t understand is, why? We’ve never really spoken. You wanted my daughter, you got her. You wanted to get out of Georgia, you took my daughter and left. Seems to me, I have plenty of reason to be sore with you. Why, a father’s list of grievances against the boy who runs away with his only daughter … But what have I ever done to you, son? What have I ever done to you?”

“You failed your daughter,” Jason heard himself say. “She needed you, and you failed her.”

“What
in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your wife! I’m talking about your crazed, boozed-up wife who beat Sandy each and every day while you did nothing to stop it. What kind of father abandons his child like that? What kind of father lets her be tortured on a daily basis and does nothing to stop it?”

There was a pause. “My wife beat Sandy?
That’s
what Sandy told you?”

Jason didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched out. This time, he broke first: “Yes.”

“Now, see here.” The judge sounded offended. “Sandy’s mom was hardly a perfect parent. It’s true she probably drank more than she should. I worked so many hours back in those days, leaving Missy alone with Sandra much too often. I’m sure that tried Missy’s nerves, made her maybe more short-tempered than a mother should be. But beating … tormenting … I think that’s a trifle melodramatic. I do.”

“Your wife never harmed Sandy?”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child. I saw her whack Sandy’s behind a time or two, but no more than any exasperated parent.”

“Missy never drank to excess?”

“Well, it’s true she had a weakness for gin. Maybe a couple of nights a week … But Missy wasn’t a violent drunk. If she had a few too many, then she carried herself off to bed. She wouldn’t have hurt a fly, let alone our daughter.”

“What about chasing you around the house with knives?”

“Excuse me?”
The judge sounded shocked.

“She hurt Sandy. Slammed her fingers into doorframes, forced her to drink bleach, fed her household objects just so she could take Sandy to the hospital. Your wife was a very, very sick woman.”

The silence lasted longer this time. When the judge finally spoke, he sounded genuinely flummoxed. “This is what Sandy told you? This is what Sandra said about her own mother? Well then, no wonder you have been so curt with me. I take it back, I do. I can see your position entirely. Of all the crazy … Well. Well.” The judge didn’t seem to know what else to say.

Jason found himself shifting from foot to foot, no longer feeling so certain about things. The first trickle of unease crept up his spine.

“Am I allowed to speak in my defense?” the judge asked.

“I suppose.”

“One, I swear to you, son, this is the first I have heard of such dreadful acts. It is possible, I suppose, that things transpired between Sandy and my poor wife that I never knew of. To be truthful, however, I don’t believe that to be the case. I love my daughter, Jason. I always have. But I’m also one of the few men out there that can say I truly, completely head-over-heels loved my wife. Saw Missy the first time when I was nineteen years old, and knew at that moment I’d marry her, make her my own. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful—though she was. And not because she was kind and well mannered—though she was. But she was Missy, and I loved her for that alone.

“Maybe you think I’m going on. This has nothing to do with anything. But by the time Sandy was twelve, I fear it had everything to do with everything. See, Sandy grew jealous. Of my deference to
Missy, or maybe the flowers I brought home for no good reason, or the pretty baubles I liked to bestow on my lovely bride. Girls get to a certain age, and they start, consciously or unconsciously, competing with their mamas. I think Sandy thought she couldn’t win. It started to make her angry, hostile to her own mother.

“Except then her mama died, before Sandy and her had a chance to work things out. Sandy took it hard. My sweet little girl … She changed overnight. Developed a wild streak, started to run around. She wanted to do what she wanted to do and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had an abortion, Jason. You know that? Ree wasn’t her first pregnancy, maybe not even her second. Bet she never told you that, did she? I’m not even supposed to know, except the clinic recognized her name and called me. I gave my permission. What else could I do? She was still just a child herself—she was far too young and unstable to be a mother. I prayed, Jason, I prayed for my girl like you wouldn’t believe, right up until the moment you took her out of my life.”

The judge sighed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I had always hoped Sandy would grow out of her recklessness. And talking to that principal this morning, I thought maybe she’d finally grown up, shown some maturity. But now, to hear what you are saying … I think my daughter may have some serious issues, Jason. First she ran away from me. Now maybe it’s time to recognize that she’s run away from you, too.”

Jason opened his mouth to object, but the words wouldn’t come out. Uncertainty took root in his gut. What did he really know of Sandy or her family? He’d always accepted what she said at face value. What reason would she have to lie to him?

Then again, what reason did he have to lie to her? About four million and one.

“Perhaps it’s time to meet,” Maxwell was saying now. “We can sit down, man to man, sort this all out. I have no ill will toward you, son. I just want what’s best for my daughter and grandbaby.”

“How did Missy die?” Jason asked abruptly.

“Excuse me?”

“Your wife. How did she die?”

“Heart attack,” the judge replied promptly. “Dropped dead. Terrible tragedy in a woman so young. We were shattered.”

Jason held the phone tighter. “Where did she die?”

“Ummm, at home. Why do you ask?”

“Was it in the garage? Behind the wheel of her car?”

“Why yes, now that you mention it. I suppose Sandy told you that, too.”

“But it was a heart attack? You’re certain it was a heart attack?”

“Absolutely. Terrible, terrible time. I don’t think my little Sandy ever quite got over it.”

“I read the autopsy report,” Jason persisted. “My memory is that Mrs. Black was found with a cherry red face. That’s a clear indicator of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line; it went on for thirty seconds, perhaps even a minute. Jason felt his stomach settle, his shoulders square. Sandy had been right—her father was a very, very good liar.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr.
Jones,”
Max said at last. He didn’t sound so congenial anymore. More like pissed off. A wealthy, powerful man who wasn’t getting his way.

“Really? Because I’d think in this day and age of computerized records, you’d understand that all information is eventually accessible, especially for a guy who knows where to look.”

“Cuts both ways, Jason. You dig around looking at me, I dig around looking at you.”

“Knock yourself out. When’d you arrive in town?”

“What day did you first meet my daughter?” Max countered evenly.

“Rent a car, or use a car service?”

“Gonna volunteer a DNA sample for the paternity test, or wait for family court to order it?”

“Doesn’t matter. This is Massachusetts, where gay marriages are legal and
in loco parentis
matters more than biology for determining who should have custody of a child.”

“You think just because you know a little Latin, you understand the law better than I do, boy?”

“I think I recently wrote an article about a grandfather who tried to gain custody of his grandson because he disapproved of the child’s lesbian parents. The court ruled that the child should stay with the only parents he had ever known, even if they were not his biological mothers.”

“Interesting. Well, here’s another bit of Latin for you. Maybe you heard of this phrase, too, working on your little story and all:
ex parte.”

Jason froze in the middle of the kitchen, his gaze going belatedly out the window. He saw the uniformed officer approaching his walkway, heading for his front door.

“Means ‘in an emergency,’” Max continued smoothly, low chuckle back in his throat. “As in, a grandfather can seek an
ex parte motion
in front of family court, and the court could grant an
ex parte order
regarding visitation, without you even being aware that such a hearing is going on. After all, you are the prime suspect in a missing person investigation. Surely staying with the prime suspect in her mother’s disappearance is
not
in the best interest of the child?”

“Son of a—” Jason hissed.

Front doorbell rang.

“Might as well answer it,” Max said. “I can see you, son. So can most of the free world.”

That’s when Jason spotted Max, too, standing over by the cluster of white news vans, cell phone held to his ear. The older man waved his hand, looking chipper in a fresh blue suit that set off his shock of silver hair. The phone call, why Max had chatted away so readily, keeping Jason in one place, all under the guise of making amends … Jason’s doorbell rang again.

“Got it, Daddy,” Ree sang out.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Jason had died once, nearly twenty-five years ago. This was worse than that. This was his entire world shattering. As Ree stood on tiptoe to undo the first lock, then the second.

As she pulled the door fully open to reveal the uniformed officer.

The man carried a folded piece of white paper. His gaze went over Ree’s head and found Jason standing in the entryway of the kitchen, still clutching the phone to his ear.

“Jason F. Jones.”

Jason finally set down the receiver. He moved on autopilot, stepping forward, holding out his hand.

“Consider yourself served,” the county officer said. Then, his mission complete, he pivoted sharply and returned back down the front steps. While across the street, the photographers began to snap away.

Jason unfolded the piece of paper. He read the official court order demanding that he produce his child tomorrow morning at eleven
A.M.
at the local playground, where she would have a one-hour visitation with her grandfather, the honorable Maxwell M. Black. A full hearing on visitation rights would follow in four weeks. Until then, Maxwell Black was permitted one hour every day with his granddaughter, Clarissa Jane Jones. So ordered the court.

Each day. Every single day. Max and Ree together. Max seeing Ree, talking to Ree, touching Ree. Jason, not allowed to supervise. Jason, forced to leave his daughter all alone with a man who’d participated in the abuse of
his
only child.

“What is it, Daddy?” Ree asked him anxiously. “Did you win something? What did that man bring you?”

Jason pulled himself together, folding up the paper, tucking it into his back pocket.

“It’s nothing,” he assured his daughter. “Nothing at all. Hey, let’s play some Candy Land.”

Ree won three times in a row. She kept producing the Princess Frostine card in four turns or less, a sure sign she was cheating. Jason was too distracted to call her on it, and she became even more disgruntled. She was looking for boundaries. The world had rules, those rules kept it safe.

Jason gave up on board games, and made them grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch. Ree sulked at the kitchen counter, dipping her sandwich into the soup. He mostly stirred his soup around and around, watched the croutons turn bloodred.

Court order was still folded up, tucked in his back pocket. As if reducing it down to a small scrap of paper could reduce the power it held over his and his daughter’s lives. He finally understood why
Sandra had walked away so easily from her home and her father, and why she’d never been tempted to call, not even once, for the past five years.

Maxwell Black played for keeps. And the judge knew how to twist the law to get exactly what he wanted. Son of a bitch.

“I want to look for Mommy,” Ree announced.

“What?”

She stopped dipping her grilled cheese long enough to glare at him stubbornly. “You said police officers and friends were gonna meet at the school to help find Mommy. Well, I want to go to the school. I want to find Mommy.”

Jason stared at his daughter. He wondered what parenting book might have a chapter on this.

The doorbell rang. Jason got up immediately to answer it.

Sergeant D.D. Warren and Detective Miller stood on his front porch. Instinctively Jason looked behind them for more officers. Seeing only the two investigators, he guessed he wasn’t being arrested. He opened the door a little wider.

“Have you found my wife yet?” he inquired.

“Have you started looking for her yet?” D.D. replied evenly.

He still liked her better than Max.

He let the two detectives in, telling Ree that she could choose a second movie, as Daddy needed a moment to talk to the nice police officers. In response, she scowled at him, then bawled, “I’m gonna find Mommy and
you can’t stop me!”

She stormed into the front room, clicking on the TV and powering up a DVD now that she’d had the last word.

“It’s been a long day,” Jason informed D.D. and Miller.

“It’s only eleven-thirty,” D.D. pointed out.

“Oh goody, I have ten more hours to look forward to.”

He moved BPD’s finest into the kitchen, as his child finally settled down to watch her favorite dinosaurs in
The Land Before Time.

“Water? Coffee? Cold tomato soup?” he offered halfheartedly.

D.D. and Miller shook their heads. They each took a seat at the kitchen counter. He leaned against the refrigerator, arms folded over his chest.
Grieving husband. Homicidal father. Grieving fucking husband.